1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems generally and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for scheduling traffic within a packetized radio services network.
2. Description of the Background Art
General packet radio services (GPRS) and enhanced general packet radio services (EGPRS) networks are used to communicate various data services between users or subscribers. In contrast to point-to-point links in wired-line networks (which exhibit low packet transmission error rates, high bandwidth and generally predictable transmission performance), transmission errors over a GPRS/EGPRS air link are common. In fact, due to variations in radio frequency (RF) link quality at different locations within a cellular region, different users sharing a time slot may experience different link quality at the same time. The observed transmission quality by each user varies over time due to fluctuations in signal strength and interference power, as well as changes in air link coding introduced by link adaptation. As such, approaches to managing the quality of service (QoS) designed for wired-line networks are not directly applicable to a GPRS/EGPRS air link.